Maybe Baby

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Maybe Baby Page 10

by Elaine Fox


  “I got a call from Dad today,” Kevin continued.

  Behind them, billiard balls clattered as the only other two patrons of the place racked up for another game.

  Jack raised his brows. This was unusual. Usually Kevin got a letter. Or, rather, a postcard. Once he got a list of important documents and their whereabouts written down on a cocktail napkin. Deed to the house—upstairs safe. Jack and Kevin’s birth certificates— Fleet Bank safe-deposit box #41. Key in upstairs safe. Divorce papers—upstairs safe. And on and on.

  Why their father had suddenly decided they needed this information was beyond them both, but they’d added the napkin bearing the Rusty Scupper logo—a marlin leaping improbably over a schooner—to the items in the upstairs safe.

  “He called you?” Jack asked, pushing aside his empty chili bowl and popping a pretzel from a nearby basket into his mouth.

  “Well, actually I called him. I wanted to ask him about the property, if he had a buyer yet, and he said no.” Kevin looked at him significantly.

  Jack knew where this was going and wondered for a second what Kevin would do if Jack took up the reins of his absurd scheme to buy the place. “Yeah, so?”

  Kevin picked up a rag and began wiping down the already-clean bar. “So I asked him what he’d think about selling it to you.”

  The hand holding Jack’s beer paused midway to his lips. His eyes met his brother’s. A half dozen scenarios featuring his father’s reaction flickered through his mind in an instant. It wasn’t hard to pick the right one. “He laughed, right?”

  Kevin’s eyes skittered away, and Jack knew he was right on target. He drew a healthy draught off the beer.

  “I got him to say he’d reduce the price if you wanted it. Make it easier for you to buy than the general public, in other words.”

  “Did he say he’d reduce it by half? Three-quarters? Did he happen to mention what that land is worth? I hate to be the one to tell you, Kev, but that land’s worth a helluva lot more than you or I or even he’s got.”

  Kevin eyed him. “You could sell the boat.”

  Jack scoffed even as the words sent a jolt of adrenaline through his veins. Sell the boat. Sell his lifeline, his passion, his gateway to the world. The idea was ludicrous. The Silver Surfer was his own mental oasis of freedom, the only thing that kept him sane in this little town. Moored at the ready, waiting for the moments when Jack needed perspective—or escape—the sailboat was Jack’s equilibrium. Getting rid of it would be like letting go of a life preserver in the middle of a roiling sea.

  But Kevin wouldn’t understand that. Kevin, who had married at nineteen, had a child at twenty, and now considered himself the Shepard mainstay of Harp Cove, would consider it a sign of weakness. Another example of Jack’s lack of moral fiber.

  “It wouldn’t bring enough,” Jack said finally, reaching for another pretzel. “Even if I was inclined to sell it, which I’m not.”

  “I think it would. I took the liberty of drawing up some numbers, what the boat’s probably worth, what Dad might sell for, interest rates, monthly payments—I think it’s doable. I don’t have them with me, though. I didn’t know you’d be by.”

  Jack glared at him. “You took the liberty.”

  Kevin looked annoyed. “It’s not like I went through your things. I just guessed at it, made a few calculations. I’ve done it a hundred times for things Carol and I thought about doing. And if you’ve got a few thousand in savings, I think we could get your monthly payments down to somewhere in the two-thousand-dollar range.”

  Jack nearly spit out his beer in a classic sitcom manner. He swallowed hard, coming up for air laughing. “Gee, could you? And did you figure out how many other jobs I’d have to get to be able to eat, buy propane, and have electricity at the same time?”

  The bells on the door chimed, and Jack saw with relief that Kim McQuade had entered and was winding her way past the pool tables toward them.

  “Finally,” Jack said, pulling out the stool next to him for her.

  Kevin nodded at Kim. “Hi, Kim. How’s it going?”

  “Great, you?”

  Kevin nodded again, then looked at Jack. “I’ll get you those numbers, Jack. Think about it, okay?” He moved down the bar with his rag.

  “You bet.” Jack took a deep breath and turned to Kim.

  Kim sat, throwing her purse onto the footrail below the bar. “What was that about?”

  “The house.”

  “Ah.” She nodded knowingly. “He’s still after you to buy.”

  Jack took another swig of beer. “Like the devil after my soul.”

  Kim laughed. “Something tells me you’ll run faster from Kevin.” The bartender ambled over, and she ordered a beer. “So what did you want to talk to me about?”

  Jack smiled slowly. “Oh, I don’t know. Don’t you want to get drunk first?”

  Kim raised a brow. “Ah, I see this is going to entail divulging confidences. Does this, by any chance, have something to do with Delaney Poole?”

  “Of course not,” Jack said, turning to face her with an irrepressible grin. “But now that you’ve brought her up…Did you talk to her about her husband?”

  Kim took up the beer the bartender slid to her and took a deliberate sip before answering. “In fact I did.”

  “And…?”

  She shrugged. “And she told me all about it. Or him, rather.”

  “She told you about Jim.”

  “Jim? I thought it was Joe. In any case, yes. We straightened it all out.”

  Despite himself, Jack felt his pulse accelerate. “She told you her husband’s name was Joe?”

  “I don’t know, maybe she said Jim. I’m not good with names. Anyway, the good news—for you, anyway—is that they’re not doing real well, apparently. So maybe you’ve got a shot after all.” She took a sip of her beer. “God, I can’t believe I’m doing this. Spreading gossip just like the diners club.”

  Jack smiled and patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry your little head about it, Kim. At least this time it’s for a good cause.”

  “This time?”

  He started to laugh, and after a minute she joined him. Kim was, though she frequently denied it, a gossip of the first order. The difference between her and the old men at the diner, however, was that the gossip Kim spread was generally true. And not malicious. Which was what Jack valued most about her. He could give her the straight story when he thought it needed to be known, as well as get the true story about others when the need arose. Jack had always prided himself on his manipulation of the system in Harp Cove.

  But because Kim couldn’t seem to contain any news she heard, Jack didn’t tell her about the Joe/Jim slip-up Delaney’d had with him.

  “So what makes you think there’s trouble in paradise?” Jack asked.

  “She said so. That’s why she checked the ‘Single’ box on her W-4. She thought she’d be divorced by now.”

  “She checked the ‘Single’ box? So she’s getting a divorce?” Hope—or perhaps it was heartburn from the chili—flared to life in his chest.

  Kim pulled the basket of pretzels toward herself and shook her head. “Not so fast, Romeo. They changed their minds. Guess they’re giving it another try, though God knows how, living five hundred miles apart.”

  Jack rested an elbow on the bar and rubbed his palm on the side of his face as he assimilated the information. “She say when he was coming up?”

  “No, but I didn’t ask.”

  “Hm.”

  “Yeah, hm. Gives you some time, right? What are you going to do?”

  Jack’s gaze slid over to her. “About what?”

  Kim laughed and used the moment of tossing her head back to pop another pretzel. “About your crush.”

  “I don’t have a crush.” But he hesitated, was that all this was? “I’m just…interested in my tenant’s needs.”

  “As a landlord.”

  He nodded. “As a landlord.”

  They looked at each
other for an extended moment, then both started to laugh.

  After a moment, Kim sobered. “But seriously, Jack, there’s one thing I need to know if I’m going to keep doing you favors like this.”

  “What’s that?” he asked, taking another swig of his beer.

  “I need to know…,” here her lips curved into an ironic smile, “that your intentions are honorable.”

  Jack started to laugh. “What?”

  “I mean it. I like Delaney and I’m not going to help you if I think you’re just going to toy with her and break her heart.”

  “Believe me,” Jack said, leaning his arms on the bar and staring down at them, “the last thing I want to do is ‘toy’ with Delaney Poole.”

  “You know what I mean,” Kim said. “Are you in love with her? Do you think she’s The One? What?”

  Jack turned and looked at her a long moment. She really did care, he thought, and the realization caused him a moment of weakness.

  “If there is such a thing as The One,” he said, smiling slightly, “then there’s a good chance she’s it for me.”

  Delaney sat at her kitchen table, a pad of paper in front of her, pen flipping mindlessly between her fingers. The words, printed with great care to make up for their scarcity, looked like a first grader’s spelling list.

  JIM

  Lawyer

  Married five years

  Emily—four months, b. March 10

  Was that all she had told people? she wondered. Was that all she’d need to tell people?

  From the corner of her eye Delaney saw Emily’s hands jerk slightly, then settle down once again to her sides. She was sleeping in her swing, her head tilted to one side, her cheek scrunched against her tiny shoulder. As soon as Delaney finished her list she would move her, but she looked so peaceful there was no need just yet.

  The necessity of the list, on the other hand, was unequivocal. She’d already messed up twice, hopefully without consequences. She’d confused her husband’s name while talking to Jack—a near fatal mistake. And she’d told Kim she’d been married five years, then remembered later she’d told Jack only about two.

  The last wasn’t as grave a mistake as the first, because she was pretty vague with Jack, she believed. Still, she had to get her facts straight, and keep them straight every time something came up.

  After a few minutes of fruitless thought, she decided that what she needed was some brainstorming. She plucked the phone off the wall and dialed Michael’s number.

  “I need to get to know my husband. I need to decide what he looks like, what he wears, who his family is, everything,” she said without preamble. Their conversations often started as if they’d never hung up from the last one. “I’m desperate, Michael. Please say you’ll help me.”

  Silence reverberated over the phone. Then, “Who is this?”

  “Very funny.” She shifted her feet onto the chair across from her. “I’m not catching you in the middle of something, am I?”

  Michael laughed. “As if you wouldn’t expect me to drop it.”

  Delaney frowned. “God, am I that demanding?”

  “No. Just that needy.”

  She groaned, and he laughed again.

  “You know just where to hit a girl, don’t you?”

  “Come on, you’re the least needy woman I know. Monks are needier than you are. Stoics are. Camels.”

  “Camels?”

  “You know, in the desert. They’ve got that hump…never mind. So, what do you need?”

  “I keep tripping up. Telling different people different things. I’m going to get caught in this lie, I just know it.”

  “Tell me again the reason for the lie?”

  “What do you mean? You know the reason.”

  “I know you don’t want this guy to know about Emily, but I don’t remember why. Is he that bad?”

  Delaney covered her face with one hand. “I thought you understood. I thought you agreed with me.” Her voice rose emotionally on the last syllables.

  “No, no, I do,” Michael said quickly. “That is I remember agreeing, I just don’t remember why.”

  “Because he as much as said he didn’t want children the first time we met, first of all. Second, because I barely know him. Third, because he’s a here-today-gone-tomorrow kind of person and that would do Emily more harm than good.”

  “Actually you were the one who was there one day and gone the next.”

  “Michael!” She sat up straight, her feet hitting the floor.

  “I’m just saying.”

  She clutched the phone hard and threw out a hand with her words, as if Michael were sitting across the table from her. “He’s a playboy, to say the least. My God, the things I’ve heard about him since I got here. It’d curl your hair.”

  “Then I don’t need to need to hear anymore of that,” he said, laughing.

  “Seriously,” she said. “He’s got quite a reputation.”

  “So you want a guy without a past for Emily’s father, is that it?”

  Delaney gritted her teeth against a now-familiar fear. “What are you saying, you think I’ve done the wrong thing? You think I should tell him about her? This stranger—this philanderer—this—this…God,” she exhaled explosively on the word, “if you could have seen the bimbo he was with when he came into my office. Do you think it would be good for Emily to have to deal with a succession of pseudostepmothers like that? I can’t bear the thought. What sort of self-esteem would she grow up with, surrounded by fake boobs—and—and stupidity and hair spray? Nurtured by a father who can’t say no to a pretty face?”

  “Okay.” He said it slowly, patronizingly. “But as one of those pretty faces, I would think you might have a little more sympathy for him.”

  Delaney shook her head. “I need women friends. Why don’t I have any women friends? They’d understand the problem I have with this.”

  She thought of Kim McQuade. She could be friends with her, she thought. She could build it up slowly, then tell her the truth and have someone sympathetic to talk to.

  “Actually, I do understand the problem,” Michael said. “But it’s yours. Not Emily’s.”

  “What do you mean? I’m thinking of Emily.”

  “Yeah, and you’re thinking of you. Of competing with women you don’t understand. Of having to deal with a man you don’t understand, and might possibly have feelings for.”

  “What?” She accidentally sent her pen skittering across the table. “Are you crazy? I don’t have feelings for him. How could I? I don’t even know him. And believe me, I don’t want to understand him.”

  She got up and pushed the chairs aside, looking under the table for the pen but blind to anything but Michael’s audacity.

  “So he’s a single guy who dates a lot. Tell me again why that makes him a bad father?”

  Delaney stopped, leaned back in the corner of the kitchen beside the table, and felt a lump grow in her throat. What was the matter with her? She never cried.

  “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

  “Honey, I’m on your side. Yours and Emily’s. And I’m just trying to understand. If you can’t answer all these questions, maybe you need to do a little more thinking about what you’re doing.”

  She put a hand to her mouth, holding back emotions that threatened to spill forth. After a second she said, “Do you honestly think I think about anything else?”

  Silence reigned for a moment while Delaney collected herself.

  “All right,” Michael said finally. “All right. What have you got there? I know you’ve got a list. What’s on it?”

  She smiled, though tears beaded in the corners of her eyes. “Hang on a second.”

  She bent and retrieved the pen, then maneuvered herself out of the corner to sit back down. She read him the list.

  “You changed Emily’s birthday?”

  She sniffed. “Yeah, I know. It was hard. But if I gave him the real one, the first thing he’d do is count backwards, wouldn’t he
?”

  “I don’t know. You said he used a condom. My guess is it would never occur to him she might be his.”

  She sighed, rested her elbow on the table and her forehead in her hand. “Well, it’s too late now. I’ve already said she’s four months old to a couple of people.”

  I’m a bad mother, she thought. I stole my own daughter’s birthday.

  “Okay, that’s all right,” Michael said, obviously aware that she was feeling raw about this. His tone was placating. “So, okay. This’ll be fun. We’ll just invent Mr. Right for you. Boy, do I have a few ideas about that.”

  She forced a laugh and it felt good. “Just make sure you make him straight, okay?”

  “Oh don’t worry, honey, your Mr. Right and mine would be completely different, in more ways than the obvious. So okay, first you should write down what this guy looks like, generally, because Emily might end up looking like him at some point.”

  She lifted her head. “Good point.”

  Handsome, she printed.

  Tall, 6'2"

  Blond

  Greenish brown eyes

  Strong jaw

  Broad shoulders

  Great shape

  College athlete

  “Okay, now what does this guy like do to?” Michael asked after she’d read him the list.

  “What do you mean? He’s a lawyer.”

  “No, I mean for fun. You remember fun, don’t you, Dee?”

  “Ha-ha.” She tapped the pen against the table. “He loves the outdoors. Hiking, fishing, camping, stuff like that. He’s really capable, too, you know what I mean? The kind of guy who knows how everything works. And he’s happy. Really easygoing.”

  She wrote it all down.

  “Jeez,” Michael said, “who wouldn’t marry this guy?”

  “I know,” she said. “Sometimes I think about that. About how nice it would be to have this guy—or you know, some perfect guy—to come home to. Maybe we’d have a dog in the yard. A swing set for Emily…”

  “And he should be able to cook,” Michael added. “Really fancy stuff.”

 

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